There’s Been A Major Development In The Decade-Long Saga Of The Hateful Eight Smashed Guitar

In Quentin Tarantino's dark and cynical 2015 Western The Hateful Eight, Kurt Russell played the bounty hunter John Ruth, who's taking his murderous prisoner Daisy Domergue, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, to her execution. There's a scene in the film where Leigh plays a song on guitar and Russell grabs it away from her, smashing it on the beam of the tavern where the characters wait out a snowstorm. Soon after the film's release, we learned that the guitar Russell smashed was an antique from the 19th century, on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum.According to sound mixer Mark Ulano, the Hateful Eight prop team made doubles of the antique guitar. After Leigh played the song on the antique guitar, the scene was supposed to cut so that they could switch out guitars and Russell could smash one of the doubles. Because of some kind of miscommunication, Russell ended up smashing the real guitar, which got a genuinely horrified reaction from Leigh. The Martin Museum wasn't happy about it, and neither was Kurt Russell. Talking about the accidental smashing in 2024, Russell maintained that it was an accident and that he felt bad about it. He also said that he was under the impression that th...